Folding samosa wrappers

woodyoak zone 5 Canada(5b)November 22, 2008

I hope some of you can help me... I need to put together instructions for folding samosa wrappers and I need to know if the instructions are easy to follow. Could someone please try to follow these with a piece of paper of the appropriate size and tell me if it worked for you? Thanks.

Most samosa wrappers that you can buy in a store are roughly 3"x9" so that is the size I have used here. Sometimes 4"x12" can be found too - i.e. length=3x width seems to work best. I started the instructions thinking I'd need to label corners etc. A, B, C,.... but I don't think that is really necessary and may just confuse the issue so I'll leave out references to letters for now.

Step 1 Start with a sheet of 3"x9" wonton/samosa wrapper pastry (or paper in this test exercise :-) The pastry is a stack of layers so you have to carefully peel off a single sheet. Before starting the filling process, you also need to make a flour and water 'glue' paste that is thick but runny. Every time you make a fold, you 'glue' it by swiping some of the paste on the pastry where the fold happens and press the layers together when you fold. This seals the layers, particulaly for corners, to prevent too much oil leaking in during the deep frying.

(Ignore the letters for now... The lines indicate where the folds will be but you don't have to worry about those either...) I have colored the edges of the underside of the paper, as you will see in later pictures, to help make some things more evident in the photographs.)

Step 2 find the middle of the sheet by folding it in half, then open it out again. Fold the right hand side up so it crosses the upper edge about 1/3 (3" in this case) from the left side.

Step 3 Fold (and 'glue') the left side over so the bottom edge aligns with the rights side of the previous fold. You should end up with a triangular bottom.

Step 4 Turn it over and you should find that you have a triangular pocket with two flaps behind it. You fill the pocket with the samosa filling, being careful not to over-stuff it.

Step 5 Fold the front flap down (remembering to 'glue the corner if you are doing this for real with pastry....)

Of course, with actual pastry, stuffing to fill out the pocket, and eye-balling where the 1/3 point is, things are never quite so neatly symetrical but it still comes out as a fairly neat triangle most times.

You can use the same technique for making any sort of filled pastry.

So... clear as mud, right? :-) Could you follow it? Did you try it; did it work?

Thanks for trying it out for me. Were the directions clear enough or is there some part that needs clarification? I meant to add - When you do the folding with real pastry, you usually hold the pastry in your left hand and do the folding and stuffing with your right hand. Because the pastry is softer and floppier than paper, it is both easier and harder to do than with the paper, so Id suggest that you practise with paper a few times before you try it for real with pastry.

No pics since the results were devoured, but it was fairly simple to put together now that I know how to fold. Before I made one large free-form "pie" but this is so much easier as there's no 1/2 pie left to stay in the fridge!!

Take mixed deli olives and course chop into 1/4" pieces. Grate orange peel and add to olives so that the ratio orange to olive is about 1:8. Drizzle with olive oil and a sqeeze of fresh lemon juice if you happen to have it around. Mash a bay leaf into nearly powder and add sparingly to taste. Throw in a few lemon thyme leaves if you have it. Mix and let sit for about 30 minutes to blend. Fill the pockets made with Woody's instructions (I used three layers of phyllo stuck together with just a bit of olive oil and used olive oil to seal the corners), bake until golden at 375degF (it took about 12 minutes). Serve.

Enjoy!!

Martie

I don't know how frozen olives would taste after thawing, but I'd imagine one could freeze these for later use.

O.K. so you already know that I am technologically challenged....now I am also samosa challenged....I even measured my paper with a ruler for Pete's sake! Anyway, I usually just buy my Samosas at M&M. (Chuckle!)